The Supreme Court has enough ammunition in the form of past judgments to examine the Gujarat Government’s premature release of 11 convicts who were sentenced to life imprisonment for the 2002 Bilkis Bano gangrape case.
For one, on April 23, 2019, the court, while awarding her ₹50 lakh in compensation, described how the “brutal, diabolic, gruesome, horrific acts of violence” committed on her has left an “indelible imprint on her mind which will continue to torment and cripple her”.
The apex court had noted that the then 21-year-old and pregnant Ms. Bilkis was “repeatedly gangraped”. She was a “mute and helpless witness to her three-and-a-half-year-old daughter butchered to death”. She had lost all the members of her family while fleeing the mayhem and violence of the 2002 riots. The court said she had lived the life of a nomad, an orphan.
